August 1, 2013

View of the day-Big trouble in the east...and south...and north. But not where we were. Yet.

It wasn't an early morning by any means.  Gerry, Al and Chris went out to move a combine and the headers over to the new field, then they cut a test and brought it into town. 16.7% moisture...waiting time.

It was a lot hotter today, reached the mid 80's and there was a strong east wind...not a good sign for weather, but good for drying down the wheat.  Gerry thought about three hours should bring it down, so we sat it out, killing time in the camper.

We went out and did another test...13.9% this time. The wait worked and we were on our way out to make some dust.  The humidity was pretty high, so the straw was kind of chewy. The farmer decided he wanted the straw dropped, so Gerry got the choppers moved out of the way on both combines and we got started.

This field was another irrigated one and it was running well over 70 bu/ac, so Lynn was kept mighty busy in the tractor and cart. There wasn't a lot of rest for the truck drivers, either, but at least they didn't have line ups at the elevator to contend with.

The field had been sprayed for weeds, but it hadn't affected the buckwheat enough, so the going was even slower.  At one point, Marilyn could hear a strange noise coming from the combine, so she stopped to figure out what it was. Not the header, or the feeder house and the rotor was running right where it needed to be. But the sound persisted.  Then Lynn said there wasn't any straw coming out of the back...just great...the back was plugged.

Lynn and Marilyn started pulling straw until Gerry combined up to the mess, then he took over.  This combine has a hitch on the back so it can pull the header, and it sticks out just far enough to keep the straw from dropping properly...and it snowballed after that. Gerry got Marilyn to jump in his combine and keep going while he finished cleaning out the combine.

It only took one round and Marilyn was able to get back into her machine and forge on. We wanted to get this field finished before the weather hit...we were in a tornado watch until 10pm and it looked like they were really getting hammered to the east of us.  It was starting to build in the west and there didn't seem to be any way we were going to miss this mess.

But we did.  We got finished and the farmer even came out to the field with drinks for everyone...beer for Gerry, diet pop for Al and wine for the girls...a nice treat to toast the finish.

On the road as we headed for town, we came across this snake on the road.  Gerry stopped so we could take a picture, he figured it wasn't moving too fast because it was cold, but looking at the picture with the flash, it would appear it's missing some guts.  It was still moving, though.

We got our fingers crossed the storms miss us...